No one has devoted themselves to the pursuit of the shitegeist with quite the same vigour as the Black Eyed Peas; to tirelessly producing offensive derogatory crap for 4 solid years, but who knew that in delivering their souls so completely to the shitegeist, they would achieve the most unexpected outcome; genius.
It’s hard to remember now, and wikipedia only allows 4 lines to sum up the years 1998-2003 of the Black Eyed Peas career, but they were once a respected (well, sort of . .) conscious hip hop group aiming to follow more in the foot steps of Common, other Spit Kickers and the Native Tongues, with soulful samples and back to basics lyrics that everyone from Dilated People’s to Ugly Duckling were embracing at the time. It was en vogue in a certain retro scene and was shortly after Jurassic 5 had gained a following on the back of their excellent debut. So it was that the Black Eyed Peas, consisting of will.i.am, apl.de.ap and Taboo (their names should have said it all), dropped their debut. Often referred to as ‘backpacker hip hop’, it was full of the sort of soulful samples, old school rhymes, and sense of positivism that is supposed to define this sub genre. Yes, the rhymes were fairly simplistic, but this was (and still is) more common than you think with various critically acclaimed groups [1]. Slum Village, for example, may have gained some attention in their time for their part in the ‘alternative’ hip hop scene, but surely only the poverty of their verses over a beat as good as the late J-Dilla’s ‘Raise it Up [2]’ (based on a twisted sample of ‘Extra Dry’ by Thomas Bangalter) could have prevented it from becoming the hit it surely deserved to be. So yes, the rhymes don’t have anything notable going on in the way of word play, but the overall sound still held its own, relatively speaking. In particular they took cues from the likes of The Pharcyde, and the record has a strong correlation to their superior labcabincalifornia released a couple of years earlier. Take a listen to the closest they got to a hit below, ‘Joints & Jams’, where they even offer an attempt at an interesting video, and allow 30 seconds space for dance moves of varying quality. This is the Black Eyed Peas I have a soft spot for, they weren’t that good, but they were trying, they knew a nice soul or funk sample, and it seemed they didn’t take themselves too seriously, but you only need to check their flow to see they still aspired to be proper MCs.
Their follow-up, Bridging the Gap, even opened with a production from the legendary DJ Premier on ‘BEP Empire’, and is probably the best thing they recorded in the “early years” (if not ever on the ‘good scale’), while DJ Premier’s distinctive production is as strong as ever; the cut up chorus and juttered rhythm reminding you of all his tracks simultaneously, despite its warmer (some might say watered down) feel. It even has a video that shows a sense of humour in abundance, and on the basis that they rap in full, all-white tennis gear at one point, I might even use the word classic to describe it.
Then, the start of the end, their biggest hit to date, ‘Request Line’ featuring Macey Gray, which took the paucity of lyrical content to the next level, offered a hook repeated a little too frequently, cut the verse down and simplified everything (from an already simplified starting point), and by now the dancing was getting a little tiresome - it’s barely hip hop, it’s really just bland pop chasing a bit of money and acceptance.
The story goes the label dropped them, lack of profitability and all that, and then will.i.am had a brainstorming session before coming to the revelationary conclusion that all their ‘hits’ to date has featured sparse meaningless verse, and a vaguely soulful female singing the hook, which was always repeated at least one time too many, and always went on longer than necessary. In short, get a female singer, cut the verses down, deliver hooks. Into that mix he added the similarly ingenious ideas; get some tits and ass, sample unbelievable recognisable hits (p diddy style), and maybe get Taboo to rap less, because he’s shit. The formula was simple. ‘Fergie’ was recruited, a monster was born.
The elusive hunt for credibility was abandoned, and despite Fergie in my humble opinion, looking like a 38 year old single mother who’s still hitting the clubs even though she’s got mouths to feed, who’s pissed herself on stage, some people do apparently find her attractive. She is also no doubt cheaper than Macey Gray, and a lot less hassle to talk to/look at. A key appointment indeed.
So it was that on the back of ‘Where is the Love?’ the Black Eyed Peas churned out more pop shit parading as hip hop than you can imagine, until they were one of the biggest acts on the planet, selling out arenas and all that. I don’t have time to go into the evils of ‘Shut Up’, ‘Lets Get it Started’/ ‘Lets Get Retarded’, ‘Don’t Phunk with my Heart’ (surely one of the worst titles for a song in the last 10, 20 or even 30 years?), ‘My Humps’ or ‘Pump It’. If for some reason you haven’t heard any of these songs, know only that you have been blessed by God Almighty, for it is a miracle, so ubiquitous were they on release. The uniting themes are chorus’ that simply repeats an absurd phrase over and over, embarrassingly tame rhymes in verses all too brief to make room for that hook to be repeated again and again and again, while Fergie warbles in that all-American-unnecessary style. I could have written about each one, and the sort of disgusting dross they embodied. They are all intolerable, they are war crimes; abandon all hope those who hear them.
That they have inflicted Fergie upon the world is surely more than one man’s conscience can take and yet they continued, but something strange happened. The Black Eyed Peas became so shit, embraced the shitegeist so completely, they came full circle, to bordering genius. They traversed the cycle of shite in a way no one could have predicted.
‘Boom Boom Pow’ was the first sign, they took the prevalent trend as they always do, in this case auto-tune and that killer synth line that is not too disimilar to the one that propelled Lady Gaga to the top of the charts, and repeated it and overused it (all in one song), with absurd, occasionally nonsensical lyrics apparently running on a futuristic theme (see “Beats so big I’m steppin on leprachauns” – what the fuck?). Its incredible! The verses are still shite, but now so bad they’re inevitably good. Take Taboo for instance, who was always the weakest of a weak bunch, whose contribution runs like this;
“I’m on the supersonic boom
Y’all hear the spaceship zoom
When, when I step inside the room
Them girls go ape-shit, uhY’all stuck on Super 8 shit
That low-fi stupid 8 bit
I’m on that HD flat
This beat go boom boom bap”
And that’s him done. His contribution includes rhyming ‘room’ with ‘uh’, and his idea of futuristic is HD Flatscreen tv, which has been around for a fair few years now so not all that cutting edge then. It’s probably linked in some to blatant product placement of HP flatscreens in the video, which is somehow now an endearing quality in the new BEP. A note to apl.de.ap as well, 808s aren’t futuristic, they’re retro, two very different things.
They murder the auto-tune (that’s right Jay-Z, BEP killed the auto-tune) and even Fergie delivers a classic line (“I’m so 3008, you’re so 2000-and-late”). They’re behind everyone, cribbing on Timbaland from the Timberlake album long after it was progressive, hopping on Kanye and T-Pain, but at a time where auto-tune is omnipresent on the radio, its only BEP who stand out anymore, and they’re the only ones who have made me laugh out loud.
The confirmation of this savant like percipience followed with ‘I Gotta Feeling’.
What’s that? Auto-tune again? Check. Will.i.am has managed to cut the other male members out of the group so that they don’t even have to pretend they’re trying to come up with an eight line verse? Check. Fergie gets her arse/tits out in the video FOR NO REASON AT ALL? Check. Has it got that euro-dance thing that hip hop producers have just discovered and T.I & Rihanna have already done in a way that surely can’t be bettered? Check. Is there unnecessary repeating of words like “Do It”, “tonight’s gonna be a good night” and “I gotta Feeling” so that the song is essentially just one big hook a 5 year old could repeat? Check. You knew it had to be a classic.
In fact, T.I’s ‘Live your Life’ featuring Rihanna is a good reference point, because this too is borderline einsteinian genius – and all because they ripped the chorus of near pop perfection in the form of ‘Dragostea Din Tea’ (probably known better as ‘Mi Ya Hee’) by Moldovan boyband O Zone [3], leaving the question, when the hell did T.I or Just Blaze hear it? What made them think lets use this? But what holds this song back from out-doing the Black Eyed Peas, is well, its just too good, because T.I can rhyme, Rihanna can sing, and it was released at the start of the trend, its still too hip hop, and too original.
What confirms ‘I Gotta feeling’ as greatness embodied is the refusal to be bound by hip hop clichés of verse and rhymes, to be bound by progression or innovation, its strength is outright thievery and complete unoriginality, jumping on every trend that exists in a shamelessly transparent way. It’s the anti-progression, but in a good way, a really indefinably good way.
Just when this BEP sermon could not reach higher levels, I discovered another classic BEP tune that somehow emerged from the years of atrocity. Its called ‘Bebot’ [4], and if you’re wondering what apl.de.ap did when will.i.am slowly forced him and Taboo away from the mic and into the background of the video to mime lyrics they never wrote, you have your answer here. He only went and record a song ENTIRELY IN FILLIPINO. What is the chorus of this song?
“Filipino!!! Filipino!!! Filipino!!! Filipino!!!
Filipino!!! Filipino!!! Filipino!!! Filipino!!!Bebot bebot bet
Bebot bebot bet
Bebot bebot bet
Ikaw ang aking
Bebot bebot bet
Bebot bebot bet
Bebot bebot bet
Ikaw ay”
It confirms only that I have lived in sin. I never should have doubted – suddenly ‘My Humps’, like the revelation it is surely meant to be, makes sense. This is the reason Jay-Z has released yet another dud as he fulfills his destiny to become the Bjorn Borg of rap [5], its why Kanye West is crying on chat shows, apologising for temporarily losing his mind and crushing some 19 year old girls dream while absurdly claiming ‘Single Girls’ by Beyonce is one of the greatest videos of ALL TIME, and its why 50 Cent has resorted to releasing self-help books. They all know, in their heart of hearts, that the very same group who produced 5 of the worst songs of the decade, and tried to destroy all that is good in the world by just repeating two words over and over (“My Humps” or “Pump It”), are now the greatest hip hop group alive. . . They’re killing the game and you know it. Bow down to them.
GE
[1] I once read a criticism of The Roots that simply said in their entire career Black Thought had never come up with a quotable line; it hurts when it’s true.
[2] A J-Dilla production classic:
[3] Further classics:
[4] ‘Bebot’ is apparently slang for ‘hot girl’ in fillipino in case you’re wondering
[5] i.e. was king of the game, retired, tried to come back, and couldn’t even win a game
Grant, I’ve only just read this … brilliant stuff!